Describe and evaluate psychological research into conformity

Describe and evaluate psychological research intoconformity (12 marks)A study that explores the factors of conformity is Asch's experiment (1958). He watched tofind the outcome of a person being confronted with a majority that is wrong, and if theywould change their own views to match the majority.In order to test his theory, he carried out an experiment in which he asked 123 malestudents to take part in a `task of visual perception' then split them into groups of 7-9 andsat round a large table. The experimenter showed each group 2cards, one of a standard line,and the other with three comparison lines. They were the asked in turns to identify a line onthe second card (either A, B or C) which matched the standard line on the first card ­ therewas an obvious answer on each card. But in 12/18 trials Asch used confederates that wereto give incorrect answers, the real participant was seated last or second to last around thetable so that they heard the same incorrect answer repeatedly.Asch's findings were that overall, 32% of participants conformed overall and 5% ofparticipants conformed on every trial. When later asked about the answers given during theexperiment, the participants reason for giving the wrong answer were that they eitherdoubted their eyes and thought their perception was incorrect, or they did not want tostand out from the crowd.The type of conformity was compliance because in most cases the participant did notactually believe what they were saying when giving their answers. Their reasons forconformity show examples of both informational and normative social influence. For thepeople who doubted their eyes, they showed informational social influence because theyconformed due to the fact that they were unsure of what they were seeing and did notwant to be wrong. Whereas the people who did not want to stand out showed normativesocial influence because they wanted to be accepted or did not want to stand out in theirjudgement.It was a good experiment because it was a standardised procedure which made it fair oneach trial. But it was also low in ecological validity because the experimented situation doesnot relate to real life.As successful the experiment was with its findings, some ethical guidelines were broken.Asch went against the principle of informed consent, which meant the participant did notfully know what they were getting involved in so they could not consent to it properly. As aresult of the experiment, some participants also experienced stress and temporarydiscomfort, but there was no lasting damage.